The document discusses the importance of managing data as a strategic asset in organizations, emphasizing the need for dynamic IT and real-time data access to improve business processes. It highlights the critical role of metadata in providing context and definitions for data, enabling effective data management and informed decision-making. Furthermore, it addresses the challenges of data availability and security, advocating for a unified approach to data governance to meet regulatory compliance and ensure data integrity.

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I D C E X E C U T I V E B R I E F
Managing Data Strategically
December 2005
Adapted from Capturing Meaning in Metadata Management Software: Semantic Prerequisite to the
Coherent Information Environment, by Carl W. Olofson
IDC #33057
Introduction
The demand for nimble and flexible business processes has driven
interest in developing a dynamic enterprise, which in turn requires
dynamic information technology. Dynamic IT includes the
requirement of "on demand" or "real time" data access and ability to
deliver just-in-time information that's useful and actionable, and can
fuel event-driven IT actions. This means using all the information
inside an organization that may be currently bottled up in relational
tables, formatted files, discrete online content documents and
systems, and email by putting it all together in service of the
organization's mission. It means managing data as a strategic asset.
This Brief examines strategies for the systematic use, reuse, and
understanding of data, as well as the architecture for ensuring data
availability and security.
Understanding Data
For many years organizations have needed and wanted something very
basic from their computer systems — the ability to ask a question and get an
answer, without having to log into several different systems, use multiple
applications and query tools, and know query syntax. Organizations have
also wanted their computers to perform tasks that are explainable in
business terms, as well as the ability to start or adjust those tasks using
business terms.
Many piecemeal attempts have been made at achieving this ability, including
point-to-point integrations to ensure consistency of applications, at least
regarding key information, such as customer information, and to coordinate
the operations of existing applications according to the rules of the business
using business process automation (BPA). Such efforts have usually
involved some limited metadata used to capture data formatting and
transformation rules.
Data yields information when its definition is understood or readily available
and it is presented in a meaningful context. Yet even the information that
may be gleaned from data is incomplete because data is created to drive
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applications, not to inform users. Only by presenting data together with its
definitions in a meaningful context, along with the available online content,
and supporting any random combination of queries and actions, can
organizations begin to manage their data as a strategic asset.
Metadata is the data that holds application data definitions as well as their
operational and business context, and so plays a critical role in data and
application design and development, as well as in providing an intelligent
operational environment that's driven by business meaning.
Metadata is sometimes called "data about data." This definition, however, is
not only incomplete, but is inadequate in understanding the full role of
metadata. Metadata isn't always just about data — it can be used to
document or provide a structure for managing data, applications, or an IT
environment.
Metadata can be used merely to manage the rules for data storage, retrieval,
presentation, and validation. Such operational metadata is necessary but not
sufficient to build an integrated data environment. The metadata must
provide more if the data and, ultimately, the representation and use of data
are to be managed and understood.
To achieve the systematic use, reuse, and understanding of data (this last
activity accomplished by its conversion into information) necessary for a fully
integrated data-management environment, the full definition, context, and
usage parameters of the data must be captured as well. These elements,
taken together, provide the semantics of the data, without which systematic
use of data outside of the application for which it was designed is
impractical, if not impossible.
The Role of Semantics
People tend to take for granted the processes by which they apply
semantics to human language; they don't really think about them. Oftentimes
people expect to be able to naturally infer meaning from structured data in
the same way. But assuming that sufficient meaning can be naturally
inferred from structured data usually proves to be a big mistake. Structured
data generally offers few clues as to its meaning, and sometimes those
clues turn out to be false.
Some people tend to naively assume, for instance, that relational databases
are self-documenting, and that they can interpret the data from the names of
tables and columns in them. Not only is this not true, but when the far more
precise understanding necessary for data transformation is called for, users
can be left quite ill-equipped to do more than guess as to how to go about it .
For instance, one might assume that a column in one table called CUST-
NUM and a column in another table called USER-ID contain data that mean
the same thing, but this could be completely wrong. Sometimes a
meaningful unit of information cannot be derived from a row in a table, or
even from a table altogether, but it can be derived by putting different
column values in select rows from one table together with column values in
select rows from one or more other tables. Some data in the database may
provide input to a formula; the result of the formula is meaningful and is

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presented to the user, but if the user doesn't know the formula (often buried
in program code), the data itself is useless.
Data semantics involve four elements:
• The definition of the data, both elementary (such as field or
columns) and in structures or combinations (such as record
types or tables, database schemas, and larger data systems)
• The context of the types of data in question within a larger
structure of meaning (such as a business model)
• The context of the actual data itself in the database, files, and so
forth in relation to other data
• The knowledge and experience of the user
The weaker the former two elements are, the stronger the latter two must be
if the user is to understand the data at all. The former two have to do with
the structure, definition, and rules of types of data; the latter two have to do
with interpreting instance data as it occurs in the database or file and are
dependent on the actual operation of the application, and on the user. The
former two must be captured in metadata and are necessary to govern
large-scale data integration.
The four taken together enable smarter query and reporting functionality
across the entire IT environment, and they enable the delivery of
information, derived from structured data, that is meaningful and actionable
for the user.
Metadata-Driven Data Management
The front-and-center role of metadata is to manage the relationship
between a master data system, such as a data hub, within an
organization, and the organization's various application databases.
Databases contain basically two kinds of data — either reference
data or transaction data. Reference data, of which master data is a
subset, is data typically about people or things, such as customers,
employees, or products. Transaction data is all the information related
to particular transactions, such the sale of a product. Transaction data has a
definite life cycle, one that's typically shorter than the life cycle of reference
data.
Whether reference or transaction, however, the more critical the data is, the
more critical the metadata is. Therefore it's important to optimize the
management of metadata through synchronization. This in turn can help
organizations manage and integrate data that's shared across systems, such
as lists of customers, suppliers, accounts, or organizational units.
Availability and Security Considerations
Managing multiple data sources creates the need for broader and more
straightforward administration. But this need in turn creates its own

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challenges and opportunities aplenty for database managers. Data
integration projects are increasing the complexity and fragility of data
environments, putting a premium on the ability to keep databases up and
available and to ensure good performance in handling database requests. IT
departments need to approach the question of data availability and up-time
proactively, while continuing to control costs.
Approaches to ensuring data availability must be operationally efficient, and
focus on preventative maintenance and automation. Ensuring that the right
information arrives to the right user at the right time — all cost-effectively —
requires automating maintenance tasks, making performance problems
visible, and correcting potential problems. Tools that are integral to ensuring
data availability include:
• Database performance and tuning
• Back-up and recovery
• Replication
• General administration
• Database development
The burdens placed on organizations by strict regulatory requirements and
increasing exposure to data theft means that decentralized data systems
without the proper processes and tools for data governance are literally a
threat to business health. As IT organizations pull data from separate
repositories, the ability to track and confirm changes to the data could
impact, for example, financial reporting and therefore represent a Sarbanes-
Oxley control risk.
Data security that's applied via applications according to specific databases
and data stores, or via firewalls, isn't enough. Organizations need to govern
data usage from an enterprise perspective, and address security issues
directly. The processes and tools that enable this governance include:
• Data auditing, which includes the ability to detect suspicious
data access by reviewing audit trails. Also, and especially for
compliance and assurance of confidentiality, being able to
demonstrate that all data access was legitimate and conformed
to existing regulations and confidentiality agreements
• Database access control, which includes ensuring timely
establishment of appropriate data access constraints, reconciling
them with overall security definitions, and controlling data access
at various levels of granularity; on the user side at the user, role,
and group level, and on the data side at the database, table,
column and possibly row level.
• Change and configuration management, which includes
tracking changes for compliance reasons
• Encryption, consisting of client-level encryption, explicit
encryption (i.e., via a stored procedure or client-side package),

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implicit encryption (i.e., encryption provided by the DBMS that's
transparent to the client), and encryption “on the wire” (i.e.,
between client and server)
• Real-time security monitoring (related to data monitoring)
Ensuring that data access is regulated is a challenge that must be
addressed on three levels — the conceptual, the reporting, and the physical.
A unified approach that integrates all three domains will help organizations
develop and sustain a meaningful data governance policy. Organizations
evaluating database administration (DBA) tools and utilities as part of a data-
asset management strategy should consider the following:
• Seek to move from DBA point products to database
management suites
• Tie data quality and security software to enterprise compliance
and data consolidation priorities
• Implement data management and data quality software in
combinations as part of an enterprisewide data management
platform
Although database management systems (DBMSs) are becoming more self-
tuning and self-maintaining, higher-level management functions that span
DBMSs from multiple vendors will be in demand as long as enterprises
maintain databases driven by software from more than one vendor.
Conclusion
Data yields information when its definition is understood or readily available
and it is presented in a meaningful context. Yet even the information that
may be gleaned from data is incomplete because data is created to drive
applications, not to inform users. Metadata is the data that holds application
data definitions as well as their operational and business context, and so
plays a critical role in data and application design and development, as well
as in providing an intelligent operational environment that's driven by
business meaning.
Only by presenting data together with its definitions in a meaningful context
together with the available online content, and supporting any random
combination of queries and actions, can organizations fully harness and
exploit their data assets. These data semantics, effectively applied, enable
smarter query and reporting functionality across the entire IT environment,
and they enable the delivery of information, derived from structured data,
that is meaningful and actionable for the user.
With a unified, global approach to enterprise data, organizations can ensure
accuracy, manage regulatory compliance, and ensure that the data
infrastructure constantly maps to business needs.

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